


bullets are the beauty

by charizona



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Bloodplay, Breathplay, F/F, alright, there is martine and zoe in this fic but it's very brief be warned, these tags are tentative but also slight warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-22 03:40:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3713545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charizona/pseuds/charizona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara Stanton is Martine Rousseau's past, present and future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bullets are the beauty

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to do a Martine backstory fic for the LONGEST time, and ever since the whisper of Martine/Kara started floating around, this fic got 100% more interesting. Some things that are canon FACTS: Martine used to work for the Hague. 
> 
> That's about it. Enjoy! (also, I worked INSANELY hard on this, so if you liked it, please leave kudos and/or a comment! It's greatly appreciated ;) and you're a sweetie).

 

Past: Martine Rousseau doesn’t exist without Kara Stanton.

 

.

 

Martine Rousseau was born on a Sunday. Twice. The first time, she was given a first name, and the second time, she was given a last.

Her mother liked _Martine_ , heard it once on a show.

Martine, because her mother was dying and only got to hold her for a moment before she was transferred to her father’s arms and the doctors rushed her into surgery. Martine, as her father panicked and considered adoption, sitting alone in a hotel waiting room when she became the product of a single-parent family. He kept the name because her mother liked it. Martine was born the same Sunday her mother died.

She didn’t choose Rousseau, rather she fell into Rousseau as she fell into love.

Rousseau, later in life when all it took was a brush of lips for her knees to shake. Rousseau, because the criminal gleam in another woman’s eyes made Martine a sinking ship, doomed to spend eternity on the ocean floor and stupidly in love. She became Martine Rousseau on the anniversary of her father’s death, but it was a Sunday all the same.

 

.

 

After her father’s funeral, Martine drowns in the cerebral taste of whiskey on the busiest street in the city. It’s a dive, where she’s at, almost underground, and she’s tucked in the corner ordering drink after drink. The alcohol burns her throat and her chest. She pretends not to see her father’s face every time she closes her eyes. She’s never lost anyone.

They were close. Perhaps too close for a cop and his daughter, but he was never a man who touched the drink, even after late nights on the job, and he always reserved smiles for his special little girl. She was his, and he was hers.

Earlier that day, she’d thrown dirt on his casket and looked to the sky, wondering if any God she’s not sure she believes in had been watching.

She’s wearing the same blazer, socks, shoes, only her hair’s down and her lips are redder as the blush is pulled to the surface of her skin. The bar is busy, mild in its attendance in a way that buzzes pleasantly in her ears, but she doesn’t mind. She downs the rest of her drink; the barkeep asks if she wants another.

“Dank u,” she murmurs, the Dutch thick on her tongue.

She sips, merely feels the buzz of electricity in her veins, and feels sleep pulling at her. Her apartment is across town. She has nothing left.

She’ll go to her father’s in the morning, spend the rest of the week there. She’d asked for the week off after hearing the news, in a moment of coherency, and she needs to clear out her childhood home, on the outskirts of the city. She needs to clear out her head, too.

She hails a cab and spends the entire ride staring out the window. The cab driver doesn’t try to talk to her; she doesn’t try to talk to them.

She pays, stands on her street corner, and stares at the tall, tall apartment building that she’s called her home since she moved out of her father’s home. It feels foreign. She takes the stairs, once she’s inside. Her toes drag on the corners, nicking the edges, and halfway up to the fifth floor, she stops and leans on the railing, the heaviness of the whiskey finally settling. She makes it about ten minutes later.

The key is harder. She stumbles, can’t really hold onto it, and squeezes her eyes shut for a long moment, eyelashes heavy and thick, before she pushes it into the lock.

She’s home for twenty-two minutes.

There’s a knock on the door, out of place for the odd hour and Martine has her gun out despite the alcohol flooding her veins. Her hands are steady, molding around the weapon easily. It’s almost midnight, her father’s dead, and Martine isn’t expecting anyone. Her mind draws a blank, finger poised on the trigger.

"Inspector?" a woman's voice wonders. Sweet. Disarming. Martine lowers the gun a tad, notes the use of English and not Dutch, and feels herself sober.

"It's late," she says through the door. She thinks she hears a chuckle. She hasn't put her gun down yet and she isn’t going to if this woman doesn’t further introduce herself.

"I'm with the CIA." And _that_ certainly isn't going to make Martine holster her weapon anytime soon. "If we could," the woman continues, a smirk in her voice, "carry on without the door as a mediator, I'd be much obliged."

The gun heavy in her hand, Martine opens the door, the chain still in the lock. She finds a woman, dark hair in waves. Lips curved, smirk settled on a smile, the woman tilts her head and says, “Martine? My name is Agent Stanton. I have a few things to discuss with you.”

 

.

 

Martine never goes back into work. She quits her job, turning in her service weapon and badge at the front desk without ever looking her boss in the eyes. She quits with a phone call and The Hague calls back three times; Kara Stanton smiles in the seat next to her on a flight to New York.

There’s a flutter in her chest when Kara looks at her like she’s worth something.

 

.

 

“It’s all a part of something bigger,” Kara tells her, but Kara is the only one she’s seen, the only one she’ll ever see, if things go as planned, “and you’re the contingency.” Kara tosses her hair over her shoulder and looks at her. “In case Plan A goes horribly wrong.”

“What’s Plan A?” Martine wonders, following Kara down the dimly lit hallway. Sometimes, she misses her old apartment. It had been cosy in a way she’d never meant to get used to, but somehow she’d fallen into the habit of making it her home. The belongings she’d brought with her were mostly things from her father’s house; she’d left her apartment furnished. The closets she’d left bare.

Sometimes, she misses the Netherlands, but the States are easy to get used to. The cab drivers here are quieter, if not meaner. The streets are thicker with population, but the people don’t look at you and she lets herself linger on faces of curiosity. People, she finds, are fascinating. _Especially_ the woman she’s spent a transatlantic flight with.

“Me,” Kara says, and Martine lets out an exhale of breath because _of course_.

Kara leads her to an apartment. It’s smaller than her old one, but Martine doesn’t mind when Kara’s hands cover own, slipping a key into her palm.

“This is yours,” Kara says, “all bought and paid for by your new employer. You’ll meet him soon.”

Martine stands outside her new door and watches as Kara leaves, silent as the night and just a wisp of brown hair around the corner. Martine knows she’s just spent the day (and most of yesterday night) with a killer, but she isn’t afraid. In fact, she’s a little thrilled, if she’s being honest.

Sliding the key into the lock, Martine knows there’s a difference between a killer and someone who has killed, and Martine thinks she and Kara fall into the two separate categories. Kara hadn’t said much on the trip over, but Martine’s not stupid. She wasn’t an investigator for nothing. She trusts, there was nothing keeping her in The Hague, and the only belongings in her bag are her clothes and her father’s badge.

Martine’s ready to become someone new, someone different.

 

.

 

Martine sits across from her new employer and thinks about how she shouldn’t have been so quick to say yes.

John Greer is, to say the least, underwhelming. He’s got the accent, the sidekick, and eyes that seem to know exactly what you’re thinking, but Martine is unimpressed. She’s also unnerved, sitting up straight in her chair, and she tries not to stare at Kara Stanton. A killer stands at the edge of the room with her arms crossed, teeth showing, and Martine wants to know more about her, not the man sitting in front of her.

“I told you she was qualified,” Kara murmurs, catching her eye, and Martine resists the urge to squirm.

“You did,” Greer says. He watches Martine carefully before he joins Kara in her expression, grinning like he’s found buried treasure. “Welcome to the team, my dear.”

And that’s how she ends up with her knuckles wrapped, dressed down in a tank and shorts, with Kara staring at her with murder in her eyes. Kara sparring is a sight to see, and Martine doesn’t know why she has to train when she’s already very good at her job, but an excuse to see Kara Stanton’s shirt ride up her middle, or to feel arms wrap around her and squeeze is as good as any. Martine isn’t complaining.

Martine bounces on the balls of her feet; it’s been years since she’s sparred. Kara fights like no one else. She’s quick, lithe, and hits like she means it, holding nothing back. Minutes in, Martine already has blood dripping down her chin.

Martine stifles the gasp as best she can, right when Kara lands a fist to her stomach. Kara is too close. She catches a whiff of sweat-soaked skin, Kara’s spine pressing against her, and Martine dispels all feeling in her chest, even as her stomach tightens.

Martine’s knuckles ricochet across Kara’s cheek, and Kara smiles at her with teeth outlined in blood. Both blood infused, teeth stained with crimson, they’re truly forces at work against each other. Breath catching, a foot snags the back of her ankle, and Martine’s falling, back hitting the concrete hard. She can hear Kara laughing, the sound louder than the ringing in her ears. She closes her eyes and sighs.

  


.

 

There comes a day when Kara stops training her and starts trusting her. They’re partners now, as Martine’s bullet tears through skin. There’s a difference between a killer and someone who has killed; Kara falls into the first while Martine settles in the second.

“Rousseau,” Kara says, standing off to the side. “That’s it.”

“What?” Martine’s standing over a dead body and she has no idea what Kara is talking about.

Kara says, “Your new name,” and the puzzles pieces click together. Martine lowers her gun with a still hand, the thrill from the murder gone. There’s nothing except a dead man and a woman, born again.

It’s a Sunday and Martine Rousseau forgets her father for the first time.

She looks at the man on the floor, two to the chest and one to the head, and then to Kara. Her eyes are glittering with the indication that Martine Rousseau is going to be a killer. Maybe is already.

“No teeth, no fingerprints,” Kara tells her after a long moment, like she understands, and then she turns around and makes to leave.

“Kara, wait.”

Kara turns around and Martine’s crossing the room, gun hot in her hand. She does what she’s wanted to for a while, what she’s thought about on missions like this one and in the hotel rooms they’ve shared. Kara stands still when Martine steps into her space, only angles her head down minutely. Martine presses an open palm on Kara’s chest, the thundering of Kara’s heartbeat thick like syrup. Sliding her hand around the back of Kara’s neck, she pulls Kara down and kisses her.

It’s everything she’s ever wanted. Kara kisses like she kills.

Short, sweet, _efficient_ , and Martine is weak in the knees as Kara finally allows her hands to fall into place. Her fingers grasp at Martine’s hips, tugging her closer, and there’s a dead man on the floor, but she’s kissing Kara Stanton and Kara Stanton is kissing her back.

As Kara leans further into her, Martine feels like she’s going to be swallowed whole, and then she’s being maneuvered, pressed into the wall with the dig of a gun into her abdomen. She grins into Kara’s lips, the scrape of teeth making her smile even more.

“Something funny,” Kara murmurs, choosing to bypass her mouth completely and move to her throat, running a tongue along her pulse. Her tongue matches the beat of her heart.

Martine chuckles, euphoric, and says, “Your gun’s happy to see me.”

Something about the comment sobers Kara, and she straightens, licking her lips. Her hands are still on Martine’s hips, her hips are still on Martine’s hips, but her eyes are soft and there’s just barely the hint of that familiar smirk. “We need to go,” she whispers before glancing back at the man on the floor. “ _I_ need to go. You need to clean this up.”

A hand comes up, a thumb drifts across the sharp angle of Martine’s cheek, and the same flutter that she’s grown too used to parades through her chest. Kara nods to herself.

Martine leans against the wall as Kara leaves, catching her breath.

 

.

 

She doesn’t see Kara for months, afterward. She entertains thoughts of the other woman as she runs errands for Greer, as she gets increasingly better at her job, as she is still, blessedly, in the dark.

The amount of money in her account grows with each mission, with each body that falls at the bite of her bullet. Once, Martine kills enough men to fill up an entire week in the span of a day, but she doesn’t blink. She never blinks. Greer tells her, repeatedly, that it’s all part of something bigger, something better, something that doesn’t quite exist yet.

She doesn’t know if she believes him, but money is quite convincing.

 

.

 

Martine slips through her apartment door and knows something is out of place.

Her gun’s out, the light’s off, and she stands in the small foyer and waits. She waits several minutes, her gun steady in her hand, before she starts to walk forward, the hair on the back of her neck standing. She walks into the shadow of the living room with her hackles raised, her teeth bared, and she’s attacked by the person she’s closest to.

The gun clatters to the floor as Kara twists it out of her hand; Martine catches the gleam of her teeth as the light reflects her smile, her heart shuddering in her chest. The gleam of a knife is there, too, and Martine blocks it from cutting her open. Kara’s laugh serenades her in the darkness, melodic and sharp.

Kara pins her against the wall, knife pressing into the junction of her throat, and Martine stares back like she’s in love.

Kara’s head is outlined from the hallway light flooding underneath the door, a bright spark reflecting in her eyes. The sharp edge of the knife digs into her skin and Martine stares at Kara, breathing as even as she can. A shift in movement and Kara’s hips are digging into her own; Martine’s breathing piques, and she swears Kara smirks.

“I’ve missed you,” Kara says. It’s been months, Martine hasn’t been counting (she has), and they haven’t spoken since a kiss and a kill. They haven’t had a reason to. “You always were good at following orders.”

“You were always good at giving them,” Martine replies, letting her head fall against the drywall. She doesn’t know why Kara is here, but her hips are distracting and she has the vivid memory of lips on lips in the forefront of her mind when she rather wouldn’t. Not when they’re most likely soon to go on another mission.

Kara asks, “How good are you at other things?” before she kisses her. She kisses her mouth like she owns it, like Martine’s hers, and there is nothing Martine would rather be.

One of Kara’s thighs slips between Martine’s, pressing up against her center, and she exhales, shaken. She pulls the knife away, the blade leaving a string of red on the column of Martine’s throat, and lets it drop to the floor with a soft sound on the carpet. She presses her thumb into the cut the same instant she presses her tongue against Martine’s lower lip, urging her lips apart.

Suddenly, Martine’s tasting rust, Kara’s thumb in her mouth running across the expanse of her teeth. Kara’s breathing hard, her lips still so close, and her thumb leaves a trail of Martine’s own crimson across Martine’s cheek.

(She’s sure, irrevocably so, if Kara’s hips weren’t holding her against the wall, she would’ve melted to the floor long ago).

Kara’s pulling at her blazer next, and Martine lets her. Kara eases in and out like the tide and her hands make quick work of Martine’s clothing. Her belt is next, ripped from her jeans, and Martine wonders if she’s going to be fucked right then and there. Tugging Kara’s lip between her teeth, feeling the rumble of a growl in Kara’s chest, Martine wraps her arms around Kara’s neck and pulls her impossibly closer. She feels too thin.

Untangling herself from Martine’s grip, Kara takes a step back and pulls herself out of her own shirt. She looks at Martine with mussed hair, a serene smile, and a series of gunshot scars dotting her abdomen. She asks, “You’ve got a bed in this hellhole?”

Martine only nods; she doesn’t trust her voice right now. She leads the way, feeling Kara’s gaze on her back the entire time. She wonders if Kara notices that the apartment hasn’t changed since the day she bought it. If she notices the pictures on the wall are just the generic print outs that come in the frames. If she approves or disapproves.

Halfway down the hallway, Kara grabs her wrist, pushes her against the wall, and presses her lips to her neck. “You were walking too slow,” she says simply, and Martine thinks she noticed the pictures.

“The door’s just right there,” Martine says, rolling her head to the side. She’s wanted this from the start and now that she has it, she doesn’t ever want Kara to _go_.

It’s Kara who leads the way, then, unbuttoning her jeans as she walks. She stands in front of Martine’s bed and slips out of the denim like she’s shedding a second skin, and when she turns around, a cascade of brown hair dripping down her back, she’s grinning. She holds a hand out, which Martine takes, and she pulls Martine to her with a strong tug. The rest of Martine’s clothes are shed with careless abandon and Kara’s lips replace them, skidding across her collarbones, her hands settling on her ribs.

She pushes Martine onto the bed, landing with a bounce, and she climbs over her, hair falling in her face.

“I missed you,” Martine says, echoing Kara’s earlier sentiment.

“There’s nobody to miss in our line of work,” Kara mutters before she’s reaching around herself, unclasping her own bra and tossing it off to the side. Her hips curl against Martine’s, her hand drifts down, and Martine’s breath catches in her throat.

Martine’s hands wrap around Kara’s throat, squeezing.

She misses Kara, even when she’s hovering above her, even when her hips are pressing against hers and Martine can’t necessarily think. But she’s _missed_ this, them, whatever it is they are. She’s sure that it isn’t sanctioned for two operatives to be fucking, to be in a relationship, but Martine’s heart aches when Kara isn’t around. It’s as much as she can ask for.

Kara leans against her hand, and Martine’s fingers dig into her pulse, watching her pupils dilate. The fingers on Martine’s chest crook, nails digging into skin, and suddenly they’re dragged down her middle, scratching past her navel with intent. As Martine lets go of her throat, Kara lurches forward, lips messily landing on Martine’s just as her fingers slide past her panties, plunging into heat.

Martine gasps against Kara’s mouth, searing her breath against her cheek. “Kara,” she breathes, as nails skid against her clit. She’s already close, but Kara teases her, instead just running her fingertips up and down her labia in lieu of pushing inside.

Martine retaliates with a carefully placed thigh. A curse slides against Martine’s collarbone, slipping past bared teeth as Martine’s thigh rubs achingly against Kara’s center. Martine feels how soaked she is, wants to touch her, but Kara’s pushing a finger inside of her and all Martine can do is squeeze her eyes closed.

She burns with desire, smoldering as Kara pushes against her. They rock in tandem, Martine’s thigh quivering with every push of Kara’s center against it, and soon Kara’s slipping another finger into her. She bites the side of Martine’s neck to hold in her sounds and it only urges a groan from Martine’s chest. They’re opposites, rising to the edge together in increasingly growing movement. As the base of Kara’s palm brushes her clit, Martine gasps something unintelligible.

At least, to her. Kara stills, for a moment, and Martine claws at her back because she’s too close for Kara to stop now. She comes at the mercy of a killer, pulled undone by the same fingers that’d tugged a trigger hours earlier.

Kara shudders against her thigh, curling over the edge with a gasp and Martine’s name slipping past her lips. Martine thinks she looks gorgeous. Disheveled, dangerous, Kara Stanton flips over and lies beside her. She’s still close. Martine wants to curl into her, breathe in her scent and memorize it, but she keeps her distance. It’s the second time they’ve done this; the familiarity is there, but Martine doesn’t want to push the line too far.

“I think I love you, too,” Kara says into the darkness, and all thoughts of closeness disappear.

Oh.

 

.

 

Most of their correspondence is through encrypted messages. Martine confirms that Kara isn’t dead through a napkin left on a diner table and a coffee still warm. She only wishes they’d gotten to have a meal together.

Kara’s good at checking in, and Martine comes to expect the late night phone calls that can never _be_ expected. Kara calls her more often than Greer does, the man preferring to text her mission details rather than spend time chatting on the phone. Kara breathes on the phone in silence and several times, Martine falls asleep with the buzz of the receiver in her ear.

Killers don’t fall in love. Martine tripped into it, she decides, and every time Kara calls, her heart speeds up with the reminder that Kara is alive and well.

 

.

 

Kara draws circles on Martine’s skin in the after-light, naked skin on skin. Martine’s getting used to the grungy motels. It’s worth it if she gets to spend the night with Kara Stevens, one of Kara’s more common aliases. Sometimes, when they sit for drinks at a bar down the street, Martine pretends they aren’t just dry from murder; just two people out for a drink and a nice time.

Kara Stevens seduces Martine with the same gleam in her eye as that first day; it works every single time.

“Tell me about Ordos,” Martine says into the musk of the motel room, and she knows Kara well enough to feel the imperceptible stiffening next to her. After mapping her entire body several times over, perhaps she knows her too well.

Kara sighs a long, heavy breath and says, “I suppose I should.”

She doesn’t talk for a while after that, and Martine waits. Greer hasn’t talked about Kara’s past, and before this, Kara hasn’t offered anything about it. Martine’s always been curious, always been the one left open and bare with her secrets spilling from her chest. Kara knows almost everything there is to know about her and to her, Kara is still a locked chest. Martine’s never even seen the key.

“I was in the CIA,” Kara says, and Martine remembers that night she was recruited, if you could call it that. “My partner was ordered to kill me, I was ordered to kill him. They sent a missile to make sure.”

Kara says the word _partner_ like whoever it was was more than that, and Martine wants to ask, but Kara doesn’t give her the chance.

“I woke up in a hospital bed, Greer was there. I found you a few months later, but you weren’t ready yet.”

Martine knows what she means by _not ready_. Martine’s father wasn’t dead, and she’d heard this part of the story before. Kara had found her file and had been impressed, so impressed that she’d wanted her as part of the team. But Martine had ties that kept her where she’d grown up, ties that were soon to be eliminated by a simple virus.

She can’t imagine what the betrayal feels like.

“Your partner,” Martine says, “is he -”

“He’s alive,” Kara affirms, her voice barely a whisper. “I’ve heard he’s good at being a ghost.”

It’s then that Kara kisses her, and all thoughts of Ordos are temporarily pushed from Martine’s mind.

 

.

 

Martine’s on a mission, dressed to impress at a cocktail dinner when Kara finds her.

It’s been two months since the last time they saw each other, and Kara’s fingers burn into her wrist as she’s pulled into the restroom with a firm tug to the joint. Kara is dazzling, hair almost as dark as her dress, and Martine doesn’t want to lose sight of the mark, but also, _Kara_.

“I’m going away,” Kara tells her, and her words are final in a way that hints to Martine that she’s not going to be seeing Kara for a long, long time. “I’m going to find John Reese. I’ve already got Snow.”

Martine knows these names. Kara had left them in the dust for her, weeks ago, and she’d researched them enough to know them as Kara’s old handler and partner. They’re crucial to the plan, Kara tells her, and Martine nods because she wants Kara to be safe, but there’s a glint in Kara’s eyes that has her worried.

Kara smiles. “I’ll call you when I can, but this, this is going to _work_ , Martine,” and then she kisses her, hard and full of so much lust that Martine almost doesn’t notice the hand that creeps up her thigh, pulling at her panties.

When Kara goes to drop, Martine grabs her wrist in a vice, smiling devilishly. She pulls Kara close, tastes her (she tastes like crimson, sticky like the lipstick on her lips), and then she’s pushing Kara into the wall.

Martine’s crouching down, a twinge in her calves as she runs a hand up smooth thighs, and Kara lets out a breathy laugh. “Martine,” she says, like it’ll stop her. “Seriously, this isn’t your fight. You don’t have to do this.”

But she’s already tugged black lingerie down alabaster thighs and over expensive heels, already breathed in the scent of Kara that she’s grown used to, and she's already pressed a kiss to the inside of Kara’s thigh, feeling the other woman sigh against the wall. Fingers weave into her hair, nails scraping against her scalp, and Kara guides her where she wants her, and finally, Martine’s lips fall between Kara’s legs.

Tongue pressing against Kara’s clit, she’s surprised how steady Kara’s legs are as she starts small ministrations, listening to the soft exhales falling from Kara’s lips. “More,” Kara says, and Martine listens.

She reaches behind Kara’s thigh and pushes it up over her shoulder, leaving angry, red scrapes after dragging her nails across sensitive skin. She pushes two fingers into Kara at once and swears Kara melts (her knees _shake_ ), and it doesn’t take too long after that.

Kara tastes like she's unwinding, yet pulling taut underneath Martine’s tongue as she pushes deeper and curls her fingers, drawing out the orgasm from her lover with a familiarity she’s come to love. Sliding her fingers out, Kara drops her thigh slowly. Martine wipes her mouth, discreet, and almost expects the way Kara yanks on her hair to pull her back up, meeting her for a messy, disastrous, blissful kiss.

“Stay safe,” Martine says against her lips, and Kara nods against her lips.

“Martine,” Kara breathes, and then she’s pushing something into Martine’s hands. It’s cold and final and something churns uncomfortably in Martine’s stomach.

She stares at the Walther P99 in her hands. “Your gun?”

“I want you to have it,” Kara tells her.

There’s an argument on the tip of her tongue, but Kara leans close, kisses her too sweet, and it dies on Martine’s lips. “Fine,” she sighs, even though she feels like she’s going to be sick.

“I have other guns,” Kara reminds her. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

Kara straightens her dress. Martine’s left alone in the restroom, an aching between her thighs she doesn’t dare alleviate with her mark in just the other room.

 

.

 

Martine meets Jeremy Lambert and doesn’t like him. He smiles too much for a man on the run, wears too many nice suits for a criminal, and Martine doesn’t appreciate his tendency to tell bad jokes.

He takes to her immediately.

 

.

 

Greer gives her mission after mission, and finally, Martine is in the city. The last she’d heard, Kara was here, playing puppet master with John Reese in a bomb vest, and there are hopes in Martine’s chest, growing warm like coffee. She doesn’t want to hope, not when she has to put bullets between eyes as often as she has to check the news, but she hopes all the same.

Martine is cleaning her gun (not Kara’s gun; she never uses Kara’s gun) when she decides to go downstairs. She finishes, sliding the pieces back into place, and shrugs into the jacket she’s been wearing for months.

The hotel she’s staying in is nicer than usual. The people don’t look at her sideways and she feels like she belongs, but she also knows that it isn’t the type of place where Kara would come to meet her. She’d leave her a message, asking to meet somewhere else, and Martine would. She’d leave a mark for Kara, of course she would, just for a night. The hallways are clean, the bar is well-stocked, and it’s just what Martine needs.

She slips onto a stool and orders a scotch, on the rocks. It burns in her throat and she wants to drown.

Ignoring the look of a man across the bar, Martine orders another drink. The TV above the bar is on low, but she looks at it anyway. The subtitles read, “Car explosion on the south side earlier tonight. Police are saying there are two victims, related to the bomb threat earlier today at 780 Mercer. The police haven’t released the identities of the victims yet, but we’ll keep you updated…”

Martine stills, staring blankly at the television as it switches to commercial. She couldn’t possibly know, but yet she does. Martine’s hand curls around the glass, holding it tight, and she expected to feel different.

Kara’s gun is in her bag upstairs, tucked away in the closet. Martine knows there’s not a chance in hell she’ll ever use it.

 

.

 

Kara Stanton dies on Tuesday, November 17, 2012.

 

.

 

Martine Rousseau finds out, for sure, a week later. It’s Greer who tells her, and immediately, _John Reese_ is on her lips, but Greer tells her something different. There is no rage in her chest as Greer tells her that Kara let revenge govern her, that Kara went off the beaten path, that Kara disobeyed the orders that she was given by involving John Reese to begin with.

“There was always a risk with that one,” Greer says quietly, and then Martine hangs up.

Martine sits on the edge of the motel bed. Still as stone, Martine explodes. It’s the moment after, when she lets out a haggard breath, a sob, that she aches with the realization that Kara is gone and Martine didn’t and never will get to say goodbye.

Kara never called her.

That night, she loses the mark in a sea of a crowd, finding her way to 780 Mercer. She catches her first glimpse of Detective Fusco, knows him from the files, and she’s tempted to follow him. Something tells her John, The Man in the Suit, whatever he’s going by these days, wasn’t the one in the car. The only thing she feels, staring at the bits of broken glass still splintering the concrete, is that Kara is dead.

 

.

 

Jeremy handles the day to day.

Martine becomes, as they wont to say, irrelevant.

 

.

 

Present: The killer she is, today, shaped by the killer Kara always wanted her to be.

 

.

 

Martine Rousseau receives an envelope in the mail, filled with only a phone and an earpiece and she’s confused, at first. She sits with it on her coffee table for a few minutes, staring intensely, and then the phone buzzes.

_Put. On. The. Earpiece._

She’s not one to follow orders from an anonymous number, but she does it regardless. Greer hasn’t kept her updated, not recently, but she’s been running missions as often as Jeremy has. She’s an enforcer, and she’s been doing a good enough amount of killing to scratch that itch. She slips the earpiece into place; her ear fills with static.

_Can you hear me?_

“Yes,” she breathes, standing alone in the middle of an apartment that she no longer thinks of as her own. It’s not the one Kara gave her, nor the one after. She’s moved around too much to call a single place home.

_You are needed._

It’s been awhile since she’s heard that. Something about the words, stilted and new as they are, send sparks trilling up her nerves, and Martine puts a gun at the small of her back and another in her jacket pocket. She heads to the directions aptly put in her head, succinct and right on time.

She ignores the memories of Budapest in her head (nights with Kara, killings with Kara) and instead focuses on her drink. She clears her throat, whispers to herself in her new accent and runs a hand through her hair.

He’s right on time. “That good, eh?”

She doesn’t listen to him, only the static in her ear that screams _threat_. She waits until she has enough to confirm, because even she won’t blindly kill for an intelligence. He leads her to a back room, rants about a lost job and divine intervention and Martine knows she’s found the one. The holster on her thigh itches.

Martine raises her eyebrows. “Artificial Intelligence? That’s a real thing?” Two years ago, she would’ve been asking the question genuinely. The chatter in her ear confirms her question as if she needs it.

“Oh, it’s here,” he answers, like he’s getting laid tonight. “I think an A.I. slipped into the world unannounced, then set out to strangle its rivals in the crib. And I know I’m on to something because my sources keep disappearing. My editor got reassigned and now my job’s gone. More and more, it just feels like I was the only one investigating the story.”

Martine smiles. It’s only polite.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sure I sound like a real conspiracy nut.”

“No, I understand,” she says. This is her favorite part. “You’re saying an artificial intelligence bought your paper so you’d lose your job and your flight would be cancelled. And you’d end up back at this bar… where the only security camera would go out.” She cut the wires two hours ago. “And the bartender would have to leave suddenly after getting an emergency text.”

The man stares at her, and Martine stares back.

“The world _has_ changed,” she says. “You should know you’re not the only one who figured it out. You’re one of three. The other two will die in a traffic accident in Seattle in fourteen minutes.”

Hand on her gun, she pulls it from behind her bag and tugs the trigger, just once. It’s enough, as his body slumps forward and Samaritan croons _threat eliminated_ in her ear. There’s a different rush in killing, now. She has different objectives, different ways of doing things, and she walks out of the bar in Budapest feeling invigorated.

Kara Stanton died before Samaritan was born, but she died for the cause. It takes Martine time to realize that, but it still hurts.

 

.

 

Martine isn’t going to let them slip through her fingers.

“Zoe Morgan?” she asks, with the disbelief of an old friend. Champagne glass perched in her fingers, Martine wraps an arm around Zoe’s shoulders as the other woman skims her mind for Martine’s face. Zoe doesn’t know her, but Zoe is in the file.

“I’m sorry, I…” It’s obvious no one catches Zoe Morgan with her pants down often, but Martine calls it special circumstances. She is a killer, after all, and she’s after Zoe’s lover (if you could call him that).

“Oh, how rude of me,” Martine murmurs, leaning in close. She’s going for the catch of an old colleague maybe. A fan, not a friend. “Martine,” she says, offering a hand. “I’m a huge fan of your work. A woman who can slip into the corporate world so elegantly, who wouldn’t be?”

Zoe smiles, and Martine knows that she’s got her. There isn’t any suspicion in Zoe’s eyes, not in this setting of the exclusive cocktail party, and Martine wonders if she’ll be able to get any information from Zoe about a certain Detective Riley. “A drink, then,” Zoe says, eyes running down Martine’s form, and Martine realizes she lucked out more than she could’ve ever hoped for.

She doesn’t get any information about Detective Riley, but she lets Zoe take her back to a hotel. She lets Zoe fuck her senseless, smelling of wine and lavender, and she thinks of Kara.

It’s Kara’s hair she feels splayed across her chest, tickling her neck. Kara’s hands on her hips, breasts, and between her legs. The last one doesn’t quite work, because Zoe Morgan doesn’t know her as well as Kara did, doesn’t make her hips lift in quite the way Kara did, but the orgasm shudders through her all the same, Zoe’s (Kara’s) lips pressing against her neck.

Martine leaves shortly after, but she bluejacks Zoe Morgan’s phone. Better safe than sorry.

 

.

 

She learns everything she can about the people working for the Machine. She is, in part, the one who is due to destroy them.

Harold Finch, whom no one knows much of anything about. Greer tells her that Kara had been tasked to track him down before she died, but Martine files that away for later. Kara would’ve been able to do it, had Mark Snow not gotten his way. Something about that whole situation twinges deep in her chest.

John Reese, who used to work with Kara, and yet Martine isn’t jealous of him. Kara tried to kill him, and that tells Martine enough. They were of the same caliber and Martine knows to be weary of him, when the time comes to it. He’s one to watch out for, arguably her equal in this war, but he didn’t kill Kara when he had the chance. A small part of her thanks him for that.

Samantha Groves, who harbors a reverential love for her God. Martine knows what God Mode is like, knows just how accurate Ms. Groves’ aim is, and yet Jeremy talks about her as if she’s an old friend. She doesn’t know what to think, that is, until the day of the Stock Exchange and she has time to review the security footage.

Sameen Shaw is someone she thought strong, and someone she thought _wrong_. She watches the security footage over and over again and can’t help but be reminded of herself, herself and Kara, and yet Shaw doesn’t flinch when Martine mentions Samantha Groves or doing her harm. Martine’s interrogated before, she knows how this works, but Sameen Shaw stares at the wall of her cell for hours, days, and pretends she doesn’t know Samantha Groves exists.

Martine supposes it makes sense. After Kara died, Martine was lost, too.

 

.

 

Martine cleans her guns. She cleans one, over and over, and ignores the quips from Jeremy Lambert. She dismisses it as a hobby.

She holds Kara Stanton’s gun in her hands and cleans it, despite the weapon not having been fired since 2012.

 

.

 

Martine dyes her hair.

She makes the mistake of walking in front of the mirror and takes pause, staring at herself and the hair falling onto her shoulders. She looks thinner, sallow, and she resolves to eat better. But from the periphery, something about her reflection had reminded her of a ghost, and she gets the urge to bleach it all over again.

She lifts a hand to her hair, running dry fingers through it. Shaw is deep, deep underground and it’s a tactic; Greer had insisted.

It’s only when Root hovers over her, hands wrapped around Martine’s throat with intent to kill, that Martine regrets dying it in the first place. The ache in her chest is fresh when Root growls, “I liked you better as blonde.”

Her vision goes spotty, her vision goes black, and when Martine wakes up in unfamiliar surroundings, bruised, bloody, and beaten, she realizes she’s been kidnapped. She doesn’t know where she is, but she knows where Shaw is and right now, that’s the only thing keeping her alive.

She’s done with Greer anyway. (And Lambert, Mahoney, _Samaritan_.

She wants to thank Root for saving her, but she doubts it will come in kind).

Martine is alone for what feels like days. Her throat burns both with thirst and bruises. She’s sure the skin is spotted, an elaborate collage of internal bleeding just beneath it. She sighs in the small room, notices how alike it is to the room they’re holding Shaw in, and strains against the zip ties holding her wrists to the chair. Already, from the strain, they’re bloody.

When someone comes in, hours, days later, it’s John. He asks her for her name.

“Martine,” she says, because she’s born again. “Just Martine.”

 

.

 

Future: Rousseau chips away like paint after Kara dies, but Martine believes in the afterlife.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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